American Turf Register And Sporting Magazine -

Baltimore, MD Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 1829) to Vol. 9, No. 12 (December 1838), comprising 108 issues [June, August, October, and December 1837 never published], bound in nine annual volumes of calf leather. Octavos. Binding leather is worn but stable. Spine labels are new. Contents VG with the usual foxing. The first sporting magazine in America, the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine reflected the prevailing tastes of the era and was consequently primarily a horse racing journal, but it covered other sporting activities as well, especially hunting and fishing. It was a handsome magazine, well illustrated with steel engravings, stone lithographs, and, rarely, wood engravings. This set has a complete complement of 76 plates, 46 of which are of horses and 30 of which are of dogs, birds, hunting scenes and other subjects. Three of the plates fold out. In 1841, The Knickerbocker proclaimed that the Turf Register had no "superior in any country, for various merits, sporting, literary and pictorial." This was not the usual parochial puffery - the Turf Register was a great magazine, deserving of a far longer life than its 14 years. This scarce and desirable set is, depending on one's perspective, either enhanced or comprised by pencil (and, occasionally, pen) notations by the original subscriber, Peter Hall, detailing the pedigree of famous racing horses of the period. Hall, perhaps a member of the famous Hall family of horse breeders, may have made these notes to aid him in the buying and selling of horses or to make him a more informed bettor at the track. Also, bound in or laid in are a half a dozen articles, wood engravings, and leaflets pertaining to horseracing, all dating from the thirties and forties. Long runs of the American Turf Register in decent shape are quite un-common.. Calf Leather. See Description. Octavos.